Journalist Adam Nayman conjures Fessenden’s WENDIGO in article on the new PET SEMATARY

…

Watching Pet Sematary, I couldn’t help but think of Larry Fessenden’s gorgeously melancholy Wendigo, one of the great, underrated horror movies of the 21st century, which features the shape-shifting Native American spirit as its title character and antagonist. Fessenden’s conception of the Wendigo is more positive than King’s, which reduces it to a generic demon, and also more political: It appears as a kind of avenging angel on behalf of Mother Nature, wreaking vengeance against rednecks. The allegory is pure eco-horror (as it is in the director’s Wendigo-themed The Last Winter), but the film’s blindsiding power is located in the authentic love generated in its main father-son pairing of Jake Weber and Erik Per Sullivan. They’re beautifully drawn, both as archetypes and as characters, and the mix of myth and specificity gets channeled in the direction of genuine, unabashed tragedy. The movie isn’t scary, exactly, but it’s sad in a way that’s close to terror—its sense of loneliness like an open existential wound. In Fessenden’s masterpiece, monsters are real but so is loss. What’s dead stays dead, and so you learn to live without it.

…

Read whole article in The Ringer HERE

Penned by Tales From Beyond the Pale regular Jeff Buhler (The Stranger, This Oracle Moon, Guttermouth)
the Stephen King adaptation features GEP pal Amy Siemetz (BITTER FEAST, TFBTP Johnny Boy)
and “Young Chelsea” Jeté Laurence from THE RANGER.

Let’s hope renewed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
don’t result in the outcome depicted in Fessenden’s 2006 horror movie…

Watch the trailer HERE

DEPRAVED isn’t the first time Larry Fessenden has delved into the Frankenstein mythos. The Godfather of Indie Horror Cinema played with reanimation in one of his first films, the mad science drama NO TELLING. That was 1991 and even though NO TELLING was a memorable and powerful film, Fessenden has perfected his distinct style and delivered a stunning low fi masterpiece in DEPRAVED.

Fessenden brings Mary Shelley’s tale into the modern age, following a PTSD afflicted war medic named Henry (David Call) who pairs up with an opportunistic pharma businessman named Polidori (BLAIR WITCH PROJECT’s Joshua Leonard) to test their new experimental drug on a recent murder victim. Naming the reanimated victim Adam (Alex Breaux), Henry goes about his private rehabilitation in a meticulous and careful manner – teaching Adam basic coordination and memory skills. Of course, this isn’t fast enough results for Polidori. Meanwhile, Adam is having flashes of his previous life and urges to find a mate of his own, much like Henry’s devoted girlfriend Liz (Ana Kayne). You know where this is going…and it’s going to be bad.

Fessenden hits all of the story beats we’ve seen in tons of reinterpretations of the Shelley classic. The difference here is that Fessenden distills the basics from the story and applies it to a modern tale of big pharma, lofty ambition, and the conflict between corporate demand vs. humanitarian treatment. Despite those heady themes, DEPRAVED is drenched with character and heart all around, as Fessenden imbues both Henry and Adam with sympathetic traits. Henry wants what’s best for Adam, looking after him like a child. But this treatment isn’t happening fast enough by Polidori, who is desperate to report results and make money off of all of this. This conflict is one of two in this tale, paralleled with Adam’s struggle to regain his humanity. All elements work marvelously and reflects Shelley’s tale in an intricate way that most Frankenstein tales fail.

Another thing that sets this film apart is Fessenden’s unique cinematography. Fessenden uses quick montages of images, simple overlays of color and light, and other rudimentary (but effective) camera effects that gives even more substance and style. This is a technique Fessenden has used before in films such as WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER. Though this technique has been used by other directors (Aronofsky’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, for example), it feels like Fessenden’s unique stamp on each of his films. I would love to see Fessenden get his hands on a big budget film. He has been behind the scenes for way too long and has been a major trumpeter for many of the best voices in today’s horror game. Maybe he is comfortable with the low budget control and personal take to all of his own films, but I’d love to see what this soulful and passionate filmmaker would do with a couple of mill. That said, DEPRAVED is truly one of the best FRANKENSTEIN adaptations you’re going to find. Be on the lookout for it

Read full article HERE

Jenn Wexler’s THE RANGER comes to Limited Edition VHS, a Lunchmeat exclusive.

“THE RANGER is the movie I wished I could have watched on VHS as a kid. It’s set in what I like to call “1980s dreamland,” an imaginary past reminiscent of ’80s punk horror classics like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Having Lunchmeat create a RANGER VHS is a dream come true. Now all I have to do is time-travel back to sneak it onto the shelf of my local video store.” – Jenn Wexler

Pre-order today!

Danny Peary Talks to ‘Depraved’ Director Larry Fessenden and His Four Stars

A clever, provocative, terrifically acted and written modern-telling of Frankenstein, it is the cult director-writer-producer-editor-actor’s best film in a long career that includes the prize-winning art-horror trilogy Habit, Wendigo, and—about another scientist doing diabolical experiments—No Telling). I especially appreciated how Fessenden exhibits respect for Mary Shelley’s source novel and the classic horror films it spawned, yet injects 21^st century ideas and issues into the story in startling ways without angering don’t-change-a-thing traditionalists like me.

Read Interview HERE

On Tues., March 26, the sixth annual NY Acker Awards will once again honor some of the
best and brightest local contributors to the Downtown arts community.

Among this year’s diverse group of recipients are
film directors Larry Fessenden and Beck Underwood

Produced by documentarian Clayton Patterson, the Acker Awards recognize
avant-garde artists, writers, musicians and community organizers
that enliven the Downtown arts scene. While the event’s name pays homage
to the late feminist writer Kathy Acker, it’s also an archaic Dutch word that means
“a visible current in a river.”

NY ACKER Awards
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Theater For The New City,
155 First Ave.
Doors Open 6 program starts 7 PM
FREE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC….

Larry Fessenden’s name is pretty much inextricable from independent horror cinema at this point. Over the course of the past few decades, he’s become not just an omnipresent indie character actor (turning up in everything from You’re Next to Session 9 to Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out The Dead), but through his company, Glass Eye Pix, he’s helped to bring countless ambitious low-budget films to to life—mostly horror (and what a resume: The House Of The Devil, Darling, Stake Land, to name a few), but also some bold drama and oddball fare (Wendy And Lucy, The Comedy). He’s also dipped into the world of video games, winning a BAFTA award for writing the hit survival-horror game Until Dawn. And through it all, he’s maintained a fairly consistent pace of writing, editing, and directing his own films at the slow but steady rate of one every five years or so. His latest, Depraved, (which had its world premiere last night at the What The Fest?! film festival in New York) is a modern reworking of Frankenstein set in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn.

When we caught up with Fessenden, what began as a discussion of his latest film turned into a fascinating and freewheeling look at the current state of indie cinema, the durability of horror, and why there’s no justification for being an asshole in the pursuit of great art.

Read Interview HERE